LIVED EXPERIENCE
HUMAN INTEREST
Across England, drug services are facing a perfect storm – rising drug-related deaths, tighter public health budgets and increasing complexity among the people who need support most. At the same time, there’ s growing recognition that traditional service models often struggle to reach those at highest risk, particularly people experiencing homelessness, trauma, stigma and exclusion.
In Plymouth, one grassroots initiative has taken a different path. Naloxone Advocates Plymouth( NAP) began as a volunteer-led, peer-driven group embedded within a commissioned treatment service. Today, it operates independently as a community interest company( CIC). Its journey offers important lessons for the sector about leadership, lived experience, and what happens when organisations step outside traditional structures.
Transforming a volunteer-led project into a community interest company has paid real dividends, says Sean Gray
Drug-related deaths in England and Wales remain at historically high levels, with opioids still driving a large proportion of fatalities. These deaths are not evenly distributed – they’ re concentrated among people facing multiple disadvantage, including poor mental health, poverty, unstable housing and social exclusion.
For many of these people, mainstream services can feel inaccessible or untrustworthy. Years of stigma, criminalisation and negative experiences create barriers that clinical or statutory systems often struggle to overcome. This is where harm reduction and, particularly, peer-led approaches have proven critical.
FILLING THE GAP Naloxone is one of the most effective tools available, yet access has been inconsistent – and often shaped by local commissioning decisions rather than need. In Plymouth,
NAP emerged to fill that gap – distributing naloxone, raising awareness and building trust with people least likely to engage with traditional services.
Initially, NAP operated within a commissioned drug treatment service. While this provided a starting point, it also came with constraints. Decision-making sat elsewhere, funding was tied to service contracts, and the group had limited autonomy to respond quickly to emerging needs.
At the same time, national policy was beginning to shift. The government’ s drug strategy emphasised harm reduction and the importance of lived experience in shaping services. Investment in peer-led organisations, including the development of lived experience recovery organisations( LEROs), signalled a new direction for the sector.
Against this backdrop, the question became clear – could NAP have greater impact outside the system it sat within? The answer led to a significant transition, from an internal volunteer initiative to a CIC.
For NAP, this wasn’ t just about structure, it was about power. Moving to a CIC meant that people with lived experience could sit at the centre of decision-making, rather than on the margins.
LEGAL AUTHORITY One of the most significant changes in NAP’ s transformation was governance. Under the CIC model, lived experience leaders moved into formal director roles, with legal responsibility and authority over the organisation.
This shift matters. Too often, lived experience is included in services in ways that are advisory or symbolic. NAP’ s model moves beyond that, embedding lived experience at the highest level of organisational control. It has also influenced culture. Decision-making is rooted in trust, relationship-building, and an understanding of the realities people face. This has strengthened NAP’ s ability to engage individuals who might otherwise remain invisible to services.
One of the biggest challenges in any lived experience-led organisation is safeguarding, particularly when many potential staff or volunteers might have criminal records. But rather than seeing this as a barrier, NAP reframed it as an opportunity to innovate.
The organisation developed a trauma-informed approach to DBS risk assessment, looking beyond offences to consider context, change, and relevance
10 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • JUNE 2026 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM